Defense One's Technical Editor Patrick Tucker.

Technology Editor, Patrick Tucker, has posted a highly informative article at the Defense One infosite that is reporting U.S. defense officials have requested $304 million to fund research into space-based lasers, particle beams, and other new forms of missile defense next year.

Defense officials want to test a neutral particle-beam in orbit in fiscal 2023 as part of a ramped-up effort to explore various types of space-based weaponry — such weapons are needed, they say, to counter new missiles from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. But just figuring out what might work is a difficult technical challenge.

The Pentagon is undertaking two studies. The first is a $15 million exploration of whether satellites outfitted with lasers might be able to disable enemy missiles coming off the launch pad. Defense officials have said previously that these lasers would need to be in the megawatt class. They expect to finish this study within six months.

They’re also pouring money into a study of space-based neutral particle beams, a different form of directed energy that disrupts missiles with streams of subatomic particles traveling close to light speed — as opposed to lasers, whose photons travel at light speed.

On Wednesday, officials speaking to reporters at the Pentagon voiced guarded confidence that they would result in something that would, in fact, be deployable.

To read the entire article, please access this direct link to the Defense One feature...